Push and Pull
by Dakyloquacious
Summary: Violent tangos send them careening into the abyss.


**Push and Pull  
**_violent tangos send them careening  
into the abyss_

**Written By?** CloneGirl  
**Prompts?** _hey you; oxymoronic; lies for the liars; "Push" by Marianas Trench; "Dance With the Devil" by Breaking Benjamin_  
**Cast & Premise?** Begins during the "NO WAI MIRA BECAME A BAD GUY?/!11?one?" arc. Gus/Mira. Shades of Mira/Spectra/Gus and Mira/Gus/Spectra (which could all be interpreted as non-romantic).  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bakugan.  
**A/N: **Written in under a week, one of my quickest fics, for a contest on Vestroia (also, I was reeeaaally bored). I've edited it a bit from what it is on that site, but nothing too major~

…The line, "let my people go", a bit later on? Yeah. That's from Prince of Egypt. I couldn't resist. X3 It was a very good song and totally epic.

_

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_I'll leave you alone – _is the offer handed to Mira roughly as Gus jerks away, skin beneath cotton sleeves tingling_ – __as long as you stay away from me._

"Hey!"

His scowl deepens when downcast (_defiant_) eyes turn around with half-hearted apologies. _I didn't do anything_, they protest, as Mira takes a defensive step away from his cold shoulder.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you."

Gus sneers before looking away, ersatz earnesty lost. He curls his fingers into the palm of his hand. _I'm not fooled by your little act. Just don't interfere with Master Spectra's plans, or you'll pay._

"Learn to watch where you're going."

_I'm not planning anything_. She nods her head jerkily, smile painted on with pale lips and false penitence.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Delicately, they step around the other (because any more unnecessary contact could prove fatal) and finish turning the corner, metallic echoes and straightforward glares marking their ways.

**|g&m|**

Gus knows her well enough.

All stone and no sand; that was brushed away when she found herself with no guardian, when she began to lead her hard-headed rebellion, when she learned to grow up. She was a bronze-lacquered idol of freedom with a plaque branded with defiant insistences saying '_let my people go!'_. This was the self-image she had carefully chiseled by herself, and he couldn't resist spitting on its base.

But when it came down to it, she was eroded away by dissolved salt and memories tossed about like pebbles, and her estranged role model had no trouble in melting down and refining her. After all, the slim-fingered phantom has had practice.

She's a lie, claims and morals eschewed in favour of following haunted footsteps. She is not a leader, not a saviour, not immovable, and not rock solid. _More like her namesake_, he decides maliciously, molded into the likeness of the specter; fine cheekbones and coarse-dulcet lips and _beautybeautybeautiful_…

Mira isn't beautiful, though, because beauty is independence, strength, and infernos scouring the earth. All she has is sweet-and-sour words that he's already had his fill of.

Gus knows her well enough to know that he will never be like her.

(But only because he's never had anything to abandon before now.)

**|g&m|**

Mira knows him well enough.

All sharp growls and snarls barked at the end of his gold-and-red leash; threats that can only be carried out (with canine-toothed grins and claws eager for a victim) when his master bids him, staunch pet that he is.

But such sojourns are short, because he can't bear the thought of finding himself lost (again and again and again). She's seen the crescent-marks etched in his palms that stopped him from going insane as he wandered through stiflingly barren streets-alleys-mazes, searching despairingly for—

—for an escape, freedom from this grey-and-black existence, a redeeming angel; better yet, Mephistopheles on his search for a new apostle to drag into hell. _And that's where he should be_, she thinks viciously. He willingly blinded himself to the destruction he causes; green reflects only bleeding feathers and demons and _beautybeautybeautiful_…

Gus isn't beautiful, though, because beauty is integrity, friendship, flowers blooming in downy steppes. All he has is fraudulent devotion for a facsimile with in comely smirks that she barely recognizes.

Mira knows him well enough to know that she will never be like him.

(But only because she's a little less naive by the end of day.)

**|g&m|**

_One-step, two-step, three-step_; they don't need to be in an embrace (starched with acid) for this dance. They just need to be able to parry their feet, swerve and evade, until neither can avoid the inevitable collision.

_This isn't willing_, is the one truth of this forced partnership, succeeded by its cousin half-lie, _but it is necessary_.

And so the waltz finally reaches a long-awaited intermission. Mira's pedestal has been repaired (by more than one pair of hands), and she can now betray him from the heavens. Gus can only try to pull her back down to the ground, if just temporarily, with blood-spiked nails.

It was a shame – they could have been unbeautiful together.

**|g&m|**

She feels anticipation when she asks '_where is Gus?',_ and rotten joy when the answer is '_gone'_.

She's never known mingled guilt and relief like she does now, and it shocks her to her magma-embroiled core. _I'm not like that, I'm a good person_, Mira assures herself as Keith sifts through her fingers again, leaving traces of regrets like gravel. _I hope he's okay._

Of course it's a posy-pocketed lie, barely enough to soothe her conscience; death is horrible, tragic, and leaves behind so many possibilities.

Keith will recognize all the harm he's caused now, because it's cost a life and Keith is too good to disregard that. Spectra will disappear, because he has nothing left to keep him aloft and Spectra needs his lapdog-voiced confidence.

Her predictions – emerald-leafed hopes, dreams, comforts – all bloom from the folds of her pocket. The world can finally stop burning to the ground.

And for every lie-turned-truth, Mira still can't convince herself she's a good person.

**|g&m|**

He feels exalted agony when he whispers '_do you see me fall, master?',_ and chagrin when the tyrant announces '_he's still alive!'._

This was not what he had imagined; avenge the devil's splendor or die trying. But Gus should have expected that if he wiggled out of his collar, he'd be easily picked off as a stray and tossed within shimmer-netted cages. He'd prefer being lost again, because now he knows what he's missing beyond these walls.

_I will escape_, Gus declares vainly to his doubts, _and bring more glory to Master Spectra, before the scum tarnishes him…_

…unless _she_ – dawn tinted angel with the crushed wings – has taken advantage of his disappearance to unchain his beloved from their ethereal replacement for heaven. Now he can despise her more and more (when this hatred is infinite and pure, too much like its counterpart).

His fears – baby blue spites, resentments, distress – curdle the droplets in his palm as the bruised prince unwittingly offers him a chance to return as a safeguard to his master, chase her away.

But for every stubborn declaration, Gus can't see himself blazing in glory as he strikes her down.

**|g&m|**

_He's alive?_

And there went by the halcyon present, when green-eyed menaces weren't drawn to the side of the only family she had left.

This time, Mira has no run-away excuse; she has to learn to stand his critical glares and open hostility, and use them to keep her own grudge alive.

**|g&m|**

_She won?_

And there goes by the fantasized return to bliss, when the only sounds were curt orders and the hum of engines.

This time, Gus can't just push her away; he has to win his master back from this alien smiling replacement, and if that means learning to put up with her, so be it.

**|g&m|**

The climax of this dance – or, more appropiately, these random steps that stumble over the bullet-holes in the floor – comes to a standstill of closed confessions: "I'm really _sick_ of you, you know that?"

In the corner of the room, Baron is cowering tearfully and Ace's stony expression is cracked. Keith is pensive.

At center stage stands the couple, one flustered red and the other chilled grey, bristled shoulders and fists stationary.

Finally, the tip of Gus' mouth curls up in wry acceptance. "At least that's been cleared up."

The tension weakens; Mira blinks, trying to comprehend the implications of her own outburst as he waits and feigns patience. It wasn't worth it anymore, to take advantage of her disconcertment for petty vindictiveness, and he's grown tired of dancing around this quarrel. "Y-Yeah…"

_I'll leave you alone_ – is their silent agreement as she watches him turn around and stalk off (yet again), and it's nothing more than that – _as long as you stay away from me. I really do hate you._

(Lies are the ugliest thing, and they are the most unbeautiful people.)

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**A/N:** I bull-crapped the "plot" or whatever of it, though I tried to keep it a coherent order of events/brooding. But I tried very hard on the prose…even though the original finished version had sooooo many awkward sentences, and I don't think I managed to iron out most of them. D: And it still ended up purple. Fucking purple. Damn the best colour in the world.

Anywho…concrit is appreciated.

**Note**: Edited slightly again on February 5th~


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